Atrokkus
Erudite
Whoah man, I smell dumbdowning here. That's exactly what is happening in CRPGs -- devs worry about people who are not so apt with reading skills and reasoning/strategy, so they make the gameplay much more user-friendly and simplified. That's NOT an option, no matter what the genre is. So you either make a game that is devoid of such problems (Starcraft) or think again.
OGame failed at that because the very essense of the MMO RTS world (AND IT IS RTS, whatever you say) implies the need of being online and active for as much as you can. Especially with the advent of new universe that is 4x faster -- that pretty much bereaves the players of lives completely as sometimes you dont even have time to take a dump without risk of one of your colonies gettin razed.
Starcraft and other non-MMO RTS are great in this regard because you can play with the whole world, and yet you have full control of the process -- you can choose not to join a game, or create one, and the ladder ranking won't be hurt too much because of your abscence, unless your level is high enough (wc3 battle.net has exp decay for higher-level players). You have full control IF YOU WANT TO. You won't LOSE, or be beatent to bloody dust, you'd just not gain any higher rank. So you have the incentive to keep playing often, but you're not forced to it. In Ogame and other MMO games, you are FORCED to spend a lot of time in the game because otherwise you will suffer consequences that would, in turn, deprive you of any "power" in the virtual world.
Hence, I advocate for withholding the same core principles that made Starcraft the greatest RTS in the history of gaming (at least on professional arena), but at the same time expanding them with enriched singleplayer experience (campaign), and more importantly, improving the so-called broadcasting quality of the game (through better graphics and faster-paced gameplay, and special spectator mode features), but at the same time keeping the same simplistic formula intact. There's no need for tons of new units or tons of barely useful spells or special abilities because it's all but crappy bells and whistles that rarely contribute to the gameplay quality. Starcraft is de-facto the best cybersport RTS because it withholds the genius simplicity of the gameplay, making the action seen on the wide-screen perfectly clear to the non-gamer audience that just want to have a good show without learning the ins and outs of the game mechanics (just as you can love watching snooker without knowing shit about how to play it well). Everyone understands that the more territory and resource nodes you control the more production you can allow for, which in turn means that your fighting force is stronger and more capable of destroying opponent's infrastructure which is the most obvious goal of the game. The intensity of action that supplements that chess-like simplicity is achieved through the principle of disposable troops -- the non-hero troops that get killed en-masse, just as in real war, and the great number of fighting arenas that occur due to the previously mentioned "map control" principle -- action is omni-present, battles are fought in many places at once, players have to pay very close attention and have perfect timing and multitasking, and every little bit of mistake may cost the player his victory, and every surprise move may turn the tides, which in turn ignites the applauds of
the audience, and makes Starcraft such a great show for people that don't even know how to play the damn thing right.
This is exactly the reason why Warcraft 3 was rejected by Korean cybersport leagues. It's not the imbalance that ruined it -- in fact, WC3:TFT balance is actually quite nice and can soon come close to the level of SC -- it was the bad broadcasting quality of the game. There wasn't much going on in the game, the action was slow-paced, the armies were centered on heroes and there was almost NO map control involved. Besides, the game is more complicated in terms of all those hero skills advancement and stuff, that it's hard to follow the game if you're not in the know -- you see stuff, but you don't quite get it what's so special about it. It's alien to me, because I do know the game mechanics and quite experienced a gamer myself, so when i watch the replays it's still quite interesting, but you just can't present it to the millions of spectators. Warcraft3 is a good game for the players, but not a fun show to watch on national television or large footbal stadiums. I hope Blizzard acknowledges that and takes measures to make sure Starcraft 2 will never go this route.
HOWEVER, there's still a problem. Even if Blizzard does all that we (progamers and spectators alike) want, the game will still be unbalanced for quite a while -- just as Starcraft 1 used to be. This will surely bring about the discord of the community, just as the advent of Counter-Strike: Source induced the unnecessary competition between the new and old titles for the place in the progamer community.
Paradoxically, if you take all the aforementioned into consideration, it becomes painfully obvious that it would be better not to release SC2 at all
The ideal scenario would be Blizzard creating a double-sided RTS, which has the innovative singleplayer play-style (maybe larger maps, seamless world etc), and the classic multiplayer built on the same principles as SC1's. That would make the game cater for the singleplayer crowd, and give blizzard time to polish the multiplayer balance more, and maybe integrate some of the "new" stuff into the classic MP.
PS: By "special spectator modes" i meant a system that would allow players to view the game in the classic top-down view with as few useless (gameplay-wise) graphical details as possible, while the spectator computer would render the whole world to the max, allowing for some real nice special effects and animation to be broadcast on TV and wide-screens in the stadiums. Would be damn cool.
